


Dream in The Umbrella

by uppercasezee



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 19:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14003262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uppercasezee/pseuds/uppercasezee
Summary: In the umbrella, Lup does not sleep.





	Dream in The Umbrella

In the umbrella, Lup does not sleep.

Even in the beginning, when stringing two thoughts together was an exertion, when her consciousness struggled to pull itself from the dark velvet mud of this curtained place, she was without sleep— for even that was not slumber, but a limbo-state, a place between being and not being anything at all.

Lup is tired.

She has plenty of reasons to be. Constituting herself was exhausting, drawing on reserves she didn’t even knew she had. So, does casting her influence over the umbrella, trying to do something, anything that can help her brother, her friends. What is most tiring of all, Lup thinks, is the loneliness of it all. Seeing her family get hurt, over and over, seeing how their lost memories have cracked them up inside, and barely being able to do anything about it. It’s _exhausting_ , being perpetually on the sidelines.

As a being of pure energy, she can’t sleep— even trancing is more a calming exercise than anything resembling unconsciousness. Before, when she was in her lich-form, she would spend those long nights researching or hanging out with whoever happened to be forgoing sleep at the time; usually Taako, Barry, or Luce. But now she spends these insomniac nights alone, an Umbrella stuffed beneath Taako’s bed, paralyzed as above her brother is haunted by nightmares that leave him almost as sleepless as her. Tonight is especially bad. She can hear him call out in his sleep. In being so close, yet so far away, Lup is more alone than ever.

And then she isn’t.

A man stands in the curtained place with her. He is pale, white as the light of creation itself, thin, with elven features and big cumulonimbus puffs of white hair that conceal all but the tips of his pointed ears. He is dressed in a long white robe, which is, to Lup’s interest, embroidered with red flames at the hems, the only other accent of color being a gleaming emerald on a thin chain necklace. In the stunned moment of his arrival, a small part of Lup wonders how much it is worth.

“Woah,” she says. “What’re you doin’ in my umbrella, Beetlejuice? Did it vore ya when I wasn’t paying attention?”

“I am Dream of the Endless,” says the man with a voice that fills the room like cool water. “I apologize for the intrusion. I will only be here for a moment.” Reaching into a small brown pouch on his waist, the strange man who calls himself Dream casts into the air a handful of glittering sand. It hangs there, frozen, a constellation of golden particles that he examines like a bug under a microscope.

There’s a strange air about him, in the formality of his speech and the way he ignores her like she’s part of the scenery. He acts like a king, or maybe a god. Considering his unexplained arrival in the Umbra Staff, bypassing who knows how many protective spells Lucretia put on the moon, he’s likely the latter. Lup’s dealt with plenty of both over the cycles, and she’s not sure which is more of a hassle to deal with. Gods tend to be just as temperamental as kings, but they’re bound by universal laws, which give them some measure of predictability. Lup’s fought gods before and won too, natch, but here, half-powerless in an umbrella, she doesn’t know if she could repeat history.

“Cool, cool,” she nods. “Not that I mind finally talking to someone after a fuckin’ _decade_ , but d’you wanna tell me what the fuck you’re doing, Truffula Tree? You’re sorta invading my space here.”

Dream turns to her, almost surprised, like he’s only just noticed her. “I am… sorry,” he says, the words heavy and awkward on his tongue, like he’s only ever had a handful of conversations in his life so far. “Great fissures have opened up in the foundations of the Dreaming— something has made the people of your world forget a great number of things, and that has erased much of their dreams. I was lead here in my investigation.”

Lup’s not stupid. She knows exactly what caused this dream god’s little problem. And who would be endangered if he knew.

“Sorry, I wish I could help ya,” she shrugs. “But I’ve been trapped in this umbrella, so I really don’t know what’s goin’ on out there.”

“You’re trapped here.” He looks at the cage of fabric and darkness that has been her home for too many years, then her. For the briefest of moments, Lup feels as if her soul is being laid bare, as if his vision pierces down to the essence of her being. It kind of tingles. “If you would like, I could take you away from this place and make you a resident of the Dreaming. The spirits of its citizens would be well lifted by your beautiful flames.”

“Uh, thanks, my guy. But I’m good on the whole living in your weird dreamland thing, could you just drop me off outside?”

Dream frowns. “To free your soul safely without taking you to the Dreaming. That would be an exponentially more complex task. Not long ago it would be a trifle, but I have recently gone through a… change. I am the same, but I am something new, now. I am far older than any of your planes, but I am also very young.” The strangely unconfident god turns away. “I am… distracted. I could accidentally tear your soul apart.”

“Yeah, I can imagine what that’s like. The being young and old at the same time thing.” A century without aging, even to an elf, was a strange experience. “But uh… don’t wanna get my soul ripped up. Got that. But hey. Could you do me one little favor, before you go back to doing whatever it is you do in your Bowie dimension?”

“What is that?”

“My brother— he’s lying on the bed up there— has been having some real fucked up dreams recently. Could you unfuck them for me?”

“It will be done.” The Dreamweaver returns the hovering sand to his pouch with a wave of his hand. “Would you like to sleep as well? It has been long since you have dreamed.” Over a decade.

“Wait— you can do that? For free?”

“It is my duty to tend to the Dreaming,” he says simply.

 “Hell yeah!”

“It is done,” says Dream of the Eternal. “This night you will know a peaceful slumber.”

And at that mystical-ass statement, he is gone. Lup wastes no time getting herself comfortable on the floor and closes her eyes.

Lup sleeps. She dreams. She dreams of bright orange fireballs, crackling with energy, of a ship that threaded the clouds with expert precision, of crisp red robes. She dreams of a century full of delight and despair. Of the brewing, hungry storm above, of the seven birds whose destinies were written into their wings.

Lup dreams of her friends and the coming sunrise.


End file.
